Designing in the Intersections: Jennifer Zeng on XR, Architecture, and Emotion
- Jennifer Zeng
- 5. Mai
- 3 Min. Lesezeit
Meet Jennifer (Yan) Zeng, a product designer whose work builds on architecture, industrial design, and emerging technologies such as XR and AI, focusing on how people experience the digital and physical worlds.
Born in Shenzhen and having lived in New Zealand and New York, Zeng brings a global perspective to her design practice. With a Master’s degree in Architecture and Integrated Product Design from the University of Pennsylvania, she creates products and experiences that examine the emotional, cultural, and societal layers of contemporary life.
Her projects reflect a sensitivity to systemic inequalities and cultural narratives, moving beyond technical solutions to raise broader questions about how design influences human behavior and relationships.
"Design for me is about questioning," Zeng says. "It’s about creating work that reveals something deeper—about ourselves, our interactions, and the systems we inhabit." By drawing from multiple disciplines, Zeng crafts work that responds to the evolving intersections of technology, culture, and society, offering users new ways to engage with the rapidly changing world around them.
How It All Started
Jennifer’s interest in design began with sketchbooks filled with imaginary architecture and stories. “I always saw space as something more than physical,” she recalls. “It was emotional, cultural, and even philosophical. That drew me to architecture—but also beyond it.”
After earning her bachelor’s degree in New Zealand, she pursued her graduate studies at UPenn, where she began integrating interactive media, speculative storytelling, and extended reality into her spatial thinking. “It was never about leaving architecture behind,” she says. “It was about expanding it.”
The Work: Where Story Meets System
Jennifer’s practice spans conceptual art, immersive experience design, spatial interfaces, and AI-powered tools, reflecting her interest in how narratives and systems shape human experience. Recent projects include a mobile AR platform that invites users to explore 3D scans of historic sites lost to fire, preserving memories of these spaces and offering comfort to those affected. She has also developed an AI-driven mixed reality meditation app designed to ease stress through immersive, gamified environments.
In the field of education, Jennifer worked on a virtual learning assistant powered by large language models, aimed at improving equitable access to educational resources. Alongside these practical applications, she continues to explore more speculative themes through projects like Ghost Broke The Shell, a series imagining a post-human future where robots dream, create music, and rebel against the systems that built them.
She’s also received international recognition, including:
📍 Golden Prize, A' Design Awards
📍 Gold Prize, International Design Awards
📍 Silver Prize, MUSE Design Awards
📍 Bronze Prize, Spark Design Awards
📍 Best of LA Emergency Response, MIT Reality Hack
📍 Best of Immersive Marketing, Google 3D Maps Challenge
“What ties my work together is this question: How does technology shape identity, memory, and feeling?”
Philosophy and Process
Jennifer is deeply inspired by speculative design, cross-cultural identity, and emotional narrative. She draws from analog and digital methods—hand sketching, 3D modeling, cinematic composition—often creating works that exist at the threshold between real and unreal.
“I believe in layering things—space and time, memory and interface. Whether it’s a VR environment or an interactive webpage, the work should make people feel something. Not just admire it technically, but connect to it.”
Her design language is often described as poetic yet precise, gentle yet critical. That duality, she says, comes from being shaped by many homes, many languages, and many in-betweens.
Beyond the Studio
Outside of work, Jennifer is a pianist, gamer, and cat lover. “Music has always grounded me. It reminds me to listen—really listen—which is so essential in design.”
She currently works as an architectural designer at HED and as a product designer for an AI-powered game studio, Starward. She’s also co-founder of Polyzone Studio, where she leads projects that blend art, law, and tech for social well-being.
Looking Forward
Now based in the New York City Metropolitan Area, Jennifer continues to evolve her creative practice, recently diving into publications, exhibitions, and jury roles to share her insights with a broader audience.
She hopes to one day establish a public design lab that brings artists, technologists, and philosophers together—a place where speculative futures are prototyped through empathy and imagination.
“I’m not just designing for the screen or for the space. I’m designing for reflection—for that pause when someone asks, What does it mean to be human now?”
Social media: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferzeng5562/
